Is there a cost for Chris Christie's Trump loyalty in fallout from Bob Woodward's 'Fear'?

USA TODAY's Susan Page sat down with legendary reporter Bob Woodward and discussed his new book which focuses on Donald Trump's time in the White House.
USA TODAY

In this Thursday, May 19, 2016, file photograph, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, left, stands with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at a campaign event in Lawrenceville, N.J. Christie quickly became the biggest Republican name to throw his support behind Donald Trump after ending his own campaign.(Photo: Mel Evans, AP)

Chris Christie was loath to attack his dining partner and friend Donald Trump as they became rivals for the Republican nomination for president three years ago.

But Christie took off the gloves in 2015 when he began threatening Trump's front-runner status. Christie's assessment then was blunt: A reality television star has no business being the leader of the free world.

"What you need is a president who's had the experience and the know-how to do this, and not someone who's just going to talk off the top of their head,'' Christie told CBS News' "Face the Nation."

That remark now looks like a prophecy, after this week's release of "Fear — Trump in the White House,'' journalist Bob Woodward's explosive portrait of Trump as an unfit and unhinged man-child of a president.

It's also a book that all paints Christie in a less-than-flattering light, a Trump adviser-turned-sidekick, enduring Trump's withering scorn in one episode while being cast as a defeatist, sitting in his sweat pants during a damage-control session. Like others drawn into the Trump vortex, Christie pays a heavy price for being a Trumpian.

Which raises the question: Why hasn't Christie made a clean break from "Crazytown,'' as Trump's chief of staff John Kelly was quoted by Woodward as calling life in the Trump White House?

Though Woodward's reliance on "deep background" and "anonymous sources" has been called into question, the legendary reporter broke the Watergate scandal more than 45 years ago, and this latest work has only added to the growing sense of a chaotic, off-the-rails president, whose closest aides view him as a threat to national security.

The book adds to mounting questions about Trump's fitness. It comes on the heels of a New York Times op-ed piece penned by an anonymous senior Trump administration official that echoes some of the disturbing revelations of "Fear."

And it comes amid Trump's divorced-from-reality defense of his administration's response to Hurricane Maria last year, calling it "incredibly successful" despite a shocking new death toll of 3,000, a far cry from the initial 64.

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Trump's decision to tout his administration's bungled Puerto Rico rescue comes at a time when a hurricane is bearing down on the Carolinas, imperiling the lives of thousands, and it further sows doubts about Trump's fitness. It also stands in stark contrast to Christie's own crisis management during Superstorm Sandy. Christie instilled confidence and calm in the weeks after that storm.

President Donald Trump speaks to Gov. Chris Christie and others during an opioid and drug abuse listening session in March in the Cabinet Room of the White House.(Photo: Evan Vucci, AP Photo)

Christie was praised for putting politics aside during those first dark days of Sandy. Trump is seizing Hurricane Florence as a chance for self-promotion.

Many Republican establishment officials denigrated by Trump are now reveling in the schadenfreude of Trump's free-fall. Yet Christie, for the most part, is remaining in Trump's orbit. He has served as the Trump interlocutor on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, generally defending Trump and serving as a behind-the-scenes adviser, privately offering Trump his advice in phone calls.

It's unclear just what Christie has gotten for all his loyalty. Is it the promise of a future role in the administration, possibly the outsider with executive experience who is enlisted to save the sinking ship? Is Christie parlaying his loyalty into lucrative clients for his fledgling law practice?

For the most part, Christie has been rewarded with a string of public humiliations since he jumped on the Trump bandwagon in February 2016. It began with Christie's blank, "hostage video" stare as he stood by Trump's side during a March 2016 press conference. That image went viral, accompanied by #freechrischristie.

Then there was Trump's thinly veiled jab at Christie's weight at a Lawrence Township rally, suggesting that Christie stay away from Oreo cookies.

Not long after that, Trump rejected Christie as his choice for vice president. He did give Christie the consolation prize of transition chairman, only to summarily dismiss him days after his victory. Just when he was about to find his place in the promised land of Washington power, Christie found himself an outsider looking in.

Woodward's book offers a possible explanation for his abrupt dismissal. Trump was furious that Christie's fundraising for the transition was siphoning away donor dollars from the campaign homestretch. Trump accused Christie of "stealing" from him.

Trump told him that Republican Mitt Romney spent too much time on his transition and not enough on his 2012 presidential campaign and that's why he lost, the book says.

"You're jinxing me. I'm not going to spend a second on it," Trump reportedly told Christie.

Another segment has Christie pulling aside then-campaign manager Steve Bannon after a tense Trump Tower huddle in October 2016. It came after the disclosure of the infamous "Hollywood Access" video in which Trump boasted of his sexual conquests. Christie confronted Bannon, accusing him of being an "enabler" of Trump's "worst instincts.''

"This thing is over, and you're going to be blamed,'' Christie told him.

In a series of tweets this week, Christie said the statements attributed to him were "incorrect" and that Woodward never reached him to get his side of the story. And he essentially argued that the book was largely ghost-written by Bannon.

If Mr. Woodward would have performed rudimentary journalistic fact checking with those he was quoting, he would have had a more accurate book rather than just being a stenographer for Mr. Bannon's self-aggrandizing revisionist history.

Despite his loyalty to Trump — a friendship that dates back almost 17 years and was arranged at the urging of Trump's sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a federal appeals court judge — Christie has steadily asserted his independence from Trump over the past year, according to one Christie confidant.

Christie has offered constructive criticisms about the administration, taking aim at some of Trump's aides and laying the blame on a failure to properly vet them — which, in effect, is Christie's way of implying that the administration would be more professionally run if he had been allowed to lead the transition.

He has downplayed the furor of Rudy Giuliani's remarks about payments made to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who was compensated to keep quiet about her affair with Trump before the election. And he deflected blame from Trump over the handling of the "zero tolerance" policy that led to the separation of children from their immigrant parents.

Yet Christie has been surprisingly blunt, saying Trump could be impeached if he tried to pardon himself and warning Trump that "he can't fire" Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. And Christie also disputed Trump's claim that an FBI raid on former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's home violated attorney-client privilege.

"Part of loyalty is giving a friend your honest and objective advice, sometimes publicly and sometimes privately,'' said William Palatucci, a longtime Christie adviser. "I don’t see the governor as a blind cheerleader for anybody."

Palatucci also dismissed suggestions that Christie was hoping his loyalty will be rewarded by some "material" gain.

"He’s not looking for anything for him," Palatucci said.

Christie, who left office as one of the most unpopular governors in the country, will inevitably get back on the slow road to redemption. Christie had a small road named after him in Morris County earlier this week. He has commissioned his portrait. A tell-all memoir is scheduled to be released next year. He'll be able to claim credit for an expensive renovation of the Statehouse. And in a sign that he's entering the emeritus stage of his career, he's appearing with former Govs. Thomas H. Kean and Christie Whitman later this month at a Middlesex County Republican Party event.

But unless he makes his break, Trump will always be a price he'll pay. He may be remembered as a Trump enabler.